IT IS COLD UP HERE IN MAINE

It was zero degrees this morning and the temps will drop below tonight...

But cold is just a matter of perspective; according to the weather report it was 13 below up at Kulkuri and Nan's igloo. 

the Ol'Buzzard

IT'S WINTER TIME UP IN MAINE

The ice storm last week left us with an inch of ice cover over everything.  Thousands were out of power – we were all right.

We have eight to ten inches of snow coming in tonight, on top of the foot we already have - followed by a week of below zero temperatures.

  Split kindling this morning and restocked the woodpile by the back door.   A good chance we will lose power so we have some gallon water bottles filled to flush the toilet.   We have lamp oil and gas lamps installed in the living room and kitchen – and always keep a supply of flashlight batteries. 

God damn it I love Maine.   Wouldn’t live any place else.

 click the enlarge icon in the lower right hand corner and enjoy.

the Ol’Buzzard

YELLOWDOG GRANNY IS BACK !

YELLOWDOG GRANNY IS BACK !

If you haven't gotten you fill of Fuck and Bacon today then check her out.   She's from West, Texas and will spit in the eye of anyone insulting the Goddess.  

YELLOWDOG GRANNY

The Ol'Buzzard

MY WISH FOR THE NEW YEAR

GUITAR SHORTY

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL AND TO ALL A GOOD NIGHT

MERRY CHRISTMAS

My wife and I don’t celebrate Christmas, but we do celebrate the Winter Solstice.   However, I enjoy the Christmas season.  

The commercial aspect of the holiday (beginning with Black Friday) is the Christian version of Pagans shedding their propriety and dancing naked around a fire at the beginning of winter.  

Actually, the commercialization of Christmas is one of the main reasons that Christianity still flourishes.   Businesses throughout the country hop on the band wagon and tout The Season with displays and advertisements and Christmas music in all their stores.   

From Thanksgiving until December 25^th you can not get away from Christmas – it is a commercial mind fuck.   Without this commercialization Christmas would be like Hanukkah: a celebration that would pass unnoticed except for those with deep affiliation. 

You must count down the days; you must decorate; you must buy presents for the children and family; you must join in the holiday spirit; you must – you must – you must: all a part of the God indoctrination.   

I am not saying that the stores are proselytizing for Christ but they end up as part of the Christian propaganda.

Anyway: A Happy New Year to All!

Morning verse:

This morning as I wake

I vow to see each thing as it is

And not to forsake the world

End of day verse:

This evening as I sleep

I vow to still all things

And put an end to confusion

Our Solstice Tree

We keep our tree decorated through the dark, stormy months of January and February.   It adds color and brightness to our house and lifts our spirits.

the Ol'Buzzard 

A FREE COMPUTER VIRUS CLEAN-UP

My computer was running really slow and hanging up.   My Norton virus protection said my computer was safe.  When I went onto the Norton web site I found that there is a free computer virus clean up download.   I downloaded it from www.norton.com/virushelp   and selected Norton Power Eraser - it took about ten minutes and Norton found and fixed three problems.   Since then my computer is running 100% better.  

I know there is some prejudice concerning Norton Virus Protection; but I thought I would share this.   Its free and if anyone is plagued with problems you might want to try it.  

I am not recommending it, just telling of my experience for your information.
the Ol'Buzzard

MY GOD! THERE IS A PTERODACTYL AT MY BIRD FEEDER

DANGER! DANGER, WILL ROBERTSON!

I looked out my window and to my horror there was a Pterodactyl eating the suit at my bird feeder!   Granted, it is a baby one - about a foot and a half tall with a wingspan over two feet,  but that begs the question: where is the mamma?

I am afraid to go out to the wood shed for fuel to feed my fire.   I may freeze to death this winter!

I can hear its prehistoric cry during the day and a hammering that sounds like the fire from a small caliber automatic weapon: it is taunting me - daring me to come outside.

If I suddenly disappear from posting...... you will know what has happened.

the Ol'Buzzard

HAPPY SOLSTICE

SOLSTICE IS THE SHORTEST DAY OF THE YEAR.

My wife and I don’t celebrate Christmas but we do celebrate Solstice, which is a much older tradition.   

Holidays like Christmas, New Years, Easter, Forth of July, Memorial Day, Veterans Day, Hanukkah, Ramadan and all the other days of celebration are creations of men to commemorate something that is only relative in their culture and their location. 

The only truly definitive points in our year are Spring Equinox, Summer Solstice and Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice,.   Our relationship with the sun is the only reason there is life on our planet; and these pivotal, definable points of nature should be a celebration of life. 

Nature has given us these four points to define the seasons.  Winter solstice is truly the last day of the year. 

Our calendar, like our religions and our holidays, is a poor attempt to regulate our life, with dates like New Years arbitrarily established.  

In the southern hemisphere their year is a mirror image or ours – the natural occurrence of their seasons a reversal.    I do not find this as a contradiction; it only becomes an issue when we attempt to bring it into our accepted concept of Calendar. 

So to all of you we wish you a happy end of the year Winter Solstice tomorrow, followed by a safe and happy new year.

the Ol’Buzzard and his remarkable wife.  

      

A CHRISTMAS WISH TO ALL

Utter Crap

the Ol'Buzzard

SUSPENDING DISBELIEF DURING THE HOLIDAYS

A TREATISE ON PISSING

As I have grown older pissing has become a major focus in my life.   When I was young I could drink a six pack of beer then go out into the parking lot and piss over the hood of my truck – I could hold my pee and when I did pee I had the pressure of a fire hose. 

Now I pee about every two to three hours – this includes during the night.   I get up an average of two to three times during the night and go downstairs to pee, then go back to bed - and when I do pee it dribbles like a leaking faucet.   When I go to the movies I piss before I go into the theater and hope to make it through the movie without having to go pee. 

Recently Murrmurrs did a post where she told of her husband pissing in the back yard. 

 I have been an outdoor pisser most of my life.   As a young man I spent much of my time hunting, fishing, camping and pissing outdoors.   I was a Navy winter bush survival instructor and for years pissing in the woods was more the norm then an exception.  

I piss in the back yard regularly when I am mowing the grass, snow blowing, working on outdoor projects or stacking firewood.  Most nights, regardless of the weather – wind, rain, sleet or snow - I go outside, look up at the sky or into the dark woods, and piss before going to bed. 

Pissing is more than a bodily function for males.   Boys and men have it down to an art form, but women don’t have the same relationship with pissing that we have.   Pissing can be fun.  Little boys (and some men) will write their names in the snow. Boys like playing with their dick so when they take it out to piss there is a natural tendency to wave it around.   Women don’t seem to have the same pleasures pissing.

My wife and I taught school in an Indian village about one hundred and fifty miles north of Fairbanks.   We would come out of the village about four times a year - during holidays and for groceries and supplies. The village was connected to the road system so we could drive into the village.   We would travel about seventy five miles up the ‘Haul Road’ (the road to Prudhoe Bay)

 and then swing off on a one lane dirt road for the last seventy five miles into the village.  

The trip would take us anywhere from three hours in the summer to five hours in the winter.   We would gas up our truck (two twenty five gallon tanks) before leaving Fairbanks – grab sandwiches and drinks and roll out. 

 

Especially on the long arduous winter drives we would need to stop and piss about half way on the trip.   There was a gravel site shortly after leaving the Haul Road where we would stop.   

At thirty-five to forty degrees below zero with a wind blowing my wife could not drop her pants and squat to pee, so we bought her a ‘pee cup’ designed for women to be able to pee while standing up.   

My wife never really mastered the standing up and peeing – she had to learn things that little boys discover early: like you can’t pee into the wind.  It beat a frostbitten bottom, but it was always a challenge for her.   I, on the other hand, would put the wind to my back and let it rip – writing my name in the snow.  

The weather tonight is zero and it is starting to snow.   I stepped outside about an hour ago to pee.   The night is dark and the sky is overcast so I watched the blurred lights of nearby houses and was hyper-conscious of the snowflakes falling around me.   I could hear movement in the wood – possibly a deer or maybe just a rabbit.  It was invigorating and gave me a feeling of closeness to nature and my small place on this earth.  

I would like to continue on with this; but I have to pee, so I’ll say good night.

the Ol’Buzzard

A BUZZARD EGG OMELET #27

We go the gymnasium at the local university.  I mentioned to my wife that taking babies into the pool seems like a bad idea because they are bound to pee when they get into the water.   My wife replied very matter-of-fact that everyone pees in the pool – at least all women do.   Now that I think about it, I have never seen a woman get out of the pool and go into the dressing room to use the restroom.   Most men do. 

Now I am noticing that the University holds water aerobic classes for seniors – mostly women attend – where are they peeing.  They have water exercise classes for retarded (oops…mentally challenged) children and adults – guess where they pee?    Then there has got to be some percentage of men who pee or even jack-off in the pool.   I know that having sex in the pool with all the people around…well it is done.

God damn it!   I don’t think I will ever swim in another swimming pool again.

While I am on the subject of bodily waste I have a gripe about toilet paper.    We live off the city water sewerage grid so we have a septic tank for our waste water.    Regular toilet paper doesn’t dissolve thoroughly so it tends to clog up septic drain fields.   The solution is to use Septic Safe toilet paper that readily dissolves in water.  

The problem is, when you wipe your ass the paper dissolves and your finger often pokes through the paper - to put it less offensively you end up with feces fingers – hey, that’s got a nice ring to it: feces fingers…could lead to a poem or song lyrics.  Ok: shit finger, crap finger, stink finger… you get the drift.  Fortunately our sink is beside the toilet.  

Is anyone actually concerned about the NSA spying on them?   If anything, we should be concerned that we have far more people employed by the NSA than is actually needed.   How many people does it take to access Face Book and find out when you granddaughter had her last period?  

I dislike women being called bitches.   I have no

problem calling them witches.   I believe all women are witches and the Goddess protects her daughters – there are secrets in the sisterhood that we men are not privileged to.  Women are mysterious – their moods often determined by the tides and the moon – they are the true forces of nature. 

The new outrage (is it Michigan or Minnesota) is the state requiring separate abortion insurance for women expecting to be raped or have an unwanted

pregnancy – regular insurance plans in that state can not by law include abortion protection.    My wife gets indignant about the Republican legislatures – mainly men – legislating these arcane requirements on women.  


 I don’t have a problem with it: I feel that many men, like myself, find this intrusion on women despicable and would not support it; but over fifty percent of the population is female - and they seem, on the whole, acceptant and supportive of this type of government regulation controlling the reproductive function of their gender – otherwise why would they continue to vote the same male chauvinists into office?    Women, with their vote alone, could change the makeup of any state legislature. 

Now I am probably in trouble with my wife, who considers all female subjugation totally the fault of manipulative men. 

It seems that more than ever Christian theocracy is on the political American agenda.  Like George Carlin said: The Christians are coming, and they are not very nice people.   

This time of year you hear the cry of The War on Christmas.  But, that cry, in reality, is the call to arms for the Christian army to unite in conforming all of us to their religious belief.   Just because some of us are paranoid, doesn’t mean they are not out to control us.  If you think the Taliban is oppressive, wait until you see the new Christian inquisition.

Is the Pope Catholic?   Good question.  

I could go on – but I won’t

the Ol’Buzzard

MAN CREATED IS HIS IMAGE

Man is made in His image

What a fearsome thought

Man the killer

Man the eater flesh

Man the executioner

Man the rapist

Man the murderer

Man the destroyer

Man the selfish – the ignorant – the bigot

Man the defiler of children

Man the orchestrator of war and genocide

And if there were a heaven

Which there isn’t

Ruled by such a maniacal entity

What a cruel place to contemplate eternity

the Ol'Buzzard

THE CAT

Many years ago my wife and I taught school in the Indian and Eskimo villages north of Fairbanks in Alaska.  In our last year with the Yukon-Koyukuk School District we were transferred to a village that had no District housing available.   We had friends in the village and one of the elders offered us his old log cabin on the outskirts of the village. 

The cabin had been derelict for at least a decade and the windows and door were broken, the roof needed repair and the cabin was full of vermin.  

We went into Fairbanks and bought window panes, insulation, sheet rock, roofing material and a gravity-fed oil burner heating stove.   We spent two weeks making the 16x16 cabin livable.

 While we were in Fairbanks we also went by a cat rescue facility and found a two year old, eighteen pound, Maine Coon Cat that we decided we would need to take care of the vermin that lived in and under the cabin.

Alaska winter

We left Alaska after that year

Alaska Spring

Hobbes was our first cat.   Hobbes immediately attached himself to me.  Over the next ten years Hobbs was my best friend.   If I was working on a ladder he would be up there with me – if I had my tool box open he would be there inspecting it – if I was reading a book I would be startled by an 18 pound fuzzy cannon ball dropping into my lap.   I lost my best friend about twelve years ago and I still miss him.

Three years after we left Alaska, while living in Kentucky, we got a baby Ragdoll kitten.

This cat is my wife’s shadow.   Everywhere my wife goes the cat is right there.   The cat likes me and she accepts attention from me, but there is no doubt that the cat has adopted my wife.  

Our girl is now eighteen years old and we know that we shall soon loose her – and that will be a trauma, especially for my wife.    My wife is awaken by the cat each morning – they go downstairs together and the cat waits in the kitchen to be fed.   They interact all the time: my wife talks to the cat and the cat talks back.   My wife sings to the cat.  They have a relationship beyond human/animal.

 We very often have to spell around the cat because the cat knows what we are saying.   I honestly believe that the cat understands quite a bit of our language.   One of us can say it is time to go to bed and the next thing we know the cat is rounding us up to go to bed.  If we are going to have tuna or chicken or salmon we can’t state it or she will beat us into the kitchen to get her share. 

We not only talk to her, but she talks to us when she decides she wants something or wants us to do something.   This is the type of interaction you don’t have with a dog. 

When we loose her it will be a while before we have another cat.   I don’t think we will ever have another dog because dogs are too much maintenance.   We have done our living in the woods and living in the back country, and that is the place to own a dog.  But now that I have grown older we are living closer to town – and the type of lifestyle we lead really doesn’t lend itself to a dog.    

But a cat in the house is a comfort, and we probably will have another cat at some time.

the Ol’Buzzard

I LOVE MY LIFE

Yesterday I was out splitting fire wood for the wood stove – dressed in Bean boots, long johns, jeans, a wool shirt, a fleece hoodie, a wind breaker and a knit hat.    This is who I am and who I have always been.   The temps were just short of twenty degrees and a blustery wind was blowing. 

Once I had moved enough wood for a couple of days fire into the back porch I took a walk through the woods west of my house looking for birch bark ruminants blown down by the last storm that I could use for fire starting.   There were deer tracks under the apple tree and moose tracks skirting the edge of my yard.

I came inside and the house was warm and toasty – the wood stove pumping heat, the comfortable sight of the fire glowing through the glass door.    The house smelled of fresh maple bread that was baking in the bread maker, and my young wife was snuggled on the couch reading with our cat curled contently beside her.  They both raised their eyes for a moment and looked at me as I hung up my outdoor gear before heading back to the kitchen for a cup of tea. 

I experienced one of those moments of total contentment: Life is Good.

the Ol’Buzzard

TROLLS UNDER THE SCHOOL

I was watching the President with Chris Matthews on Hard Ball Thursday night.   Once again, Chris Matthews started to expound on the significance of the Pope and the Catholic Church in society.   I consider Chris Matthews an intelligent man and I marvel at the blind faith and acceptance he seems to attend to the Catholic faith. 

Once you consider the Catholic indoctrination of its parishioners from childhood it is more understandable.   Catholic children are christened at birth.  Families are required to attend church.  Children of Catholics are placed in Catholic schools where religion is constantly reinforced by nuns.  About the age of reason children are instructed for Confirmation and then ceremoniously inducted into the fold.   Young Catholics attend church – take Communion – and participate in Confession.  And then, if they are like Chris Matthews they attend a Catholic College. 

Friends of ours that taught school in an Eskimo Village in Northwestern Alaska related this story:

An elementary school had been built decades before by the BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs.)    The school building was built on stilts because of the permafrost (heated buildings on the ground sink into the earth over a period of time.)  The early teachers constantly had problems with children hiding under the school, and one day one of the children was found frozen under the building.  The teachers started telling the kids that there were trolls under the school that would eat them.  As those children became adults they told their children of the trolls under the school.    The story was repeated for generations.  

The teachers told us that the school had burned down and been replaced with a modern facility and that the adults in the village were relived because they no longer had to worry about trolls taking their children. 

Indoctrination is the way that religion protects itself from common sense and logical inquiry.    It starts with children, and the premise is to accept on faith and never question – questioning is a sin against God.  

God religions are plagues on this earth.   The positive things that religions tout are paled by the wars and genocide and hatred and racism and ignorance they spawns.  Christianity can not stand up to scrutiny; so the question is why does it still wield such power in the twenty-first century?

the Ol’Buzzard

GOOGLE CHROME DRIVES ME CRAZY

 I turn on my computer – select Microsoft Word – and begin typing.   About half way through the document my hard drive starts to wherrrrr and a box pops up that tells me HIGH CPU USAGE BY GOOGLE CHROME.    Then the god damn thing locks up:  the hour glass appears - The hard drive continues to run and I can’t save, I can’t type and I can’t get out.  

I sit and wait; finally in frustration I try to bring up Explorer.   A blank page eventually appears and again I wait.   The hard drive continues to run; so I reach up and press down the ON button and do an emergency shut down.  

I have asked this question before: WHAT THE FUCK IS GOOGLE CHROME DOING ON MY COMPUTER WHEN I HAVE NOT CONNECTED TO THE INTERNET?

Three times in the past I have deleted Google Chrome from my computer, but I eventually re-install it because Chrome works better on my blog…and I like their search engine.

My computer is a seven years old HP and running FX.   It is probably time to replace it but I keep asking myself - on my fixed income can I justify spending four or five hundred dollars for something that is more of a want than a need?   
the Ol'Buzzard

THE BUZZARD IS BACK

There comes a time in every blog when the writer just doesn't feel like blogging.   Someone like Yellow Dog Granny who commits to an obligation to blogs on a schedule must, at times, come to hate her blog.  

Anyway, I took a hiatus – I just felt like I had nothing to say and had rather be reading and vegetating in front of the TV.  

But we all, for the most part, come back.    It is the need to write and be read –and collaterally express or opinions. 

So here I sit, drinking tea and eating a piece of burnt toast (when it’s brown it’s cooking and when it is black it’s done) and banging out some drivel that somehow satisfies a need of my ego.   

The Ol’Buzzard

Dec.6, 2013

THANKSGIVING: BAH HUMBUG

I am sick of it.   I am absolutely disgusted with the constant harangue and negativity.   I really don’t give a fuck. 

If health care works out – fine.   If the moronic public decides to support the faction to kill it…I don’t care: I don’t have a dog in the fight.

If the Republicans take over the Senate and Ted Cruz becomes president…Fine, I won’t like it but I will live with that too.

Global warming…fine: If we have massive storms and they affect me; I will deal with it when the time comes.  

Realistically I have five to ten more years to live – if I am lucky.   After that the world can go to hell in a handbag and it won’t matter to me.   I will be dead.

In the meantime I will accept the things I can’t change and milk each day to live the best I can with the conditions as they exist. 

Cut off the god damn noise machines and wake up.

  

At least that how I feel now….But tomorrow is another day. 

Have a happy Thanksgiving.

A BUZZARD EGG OMELET #26

My wife and I play SCRABBLE almost every day with lunch.  I am not a great speller, so she usually wins.   As I lay out my words I am constantly reminded how fucked up our written language is.   I feel that language in most cases is to communicate and as long as the central idea is transmitted all the petty mechanics are like thorns on a rosebush: unnecessary. 

For instance, I would drop the requirement for a U following a Q: Qeen – Qack – Qake – Qeer all seem to work fine.

And the letter C bugs me.  Why the hell do we need a C in our alphabet?  You could easily replace it with a K on 90% of the words and it would sound the same - and K is a prettier letter.   On the few words where C doesn't sound right an S would work fine. 

Once you start playing SCRABBLE regularly you can see the possibility of cutting down our alphabet from 25 to perhaps 16 or 18 letters.

When I taught creative writing to my students in Alaska I never corrected their spelling.  I wanted them to write – to get their ideas down on paper – to enjoy telling a story – to write write write, and not be inhibited by the fear of being criticized for their misspellings.   The final edit is what spell checkers are for.  

The Ol’Buzzard 

THE ABORTION DEBATE

The Republicans war on women

We always blame the Republican Party for their staunch views against women and abortion.   Actually the Republican Party is just an arm – and extension – of the Christian religion. 

From the very beginning the Christian religion has viewed women as lesser beings than men. 

 Eve was responsible for introducing sin into the world.   Women are temptresses that ensnare men with their sex.   Women’s bodies are evil and produce unclean thoughts.  Men’s tits and nipples are fine, but women’s tits should be covered, and a woman’s nipples – are an offence to God…hide the children’s eyes….they will go blind!  

Since Roe vs. Wade women are now considered potential baby killers.    There are fundamentalist churches (and the Catholic Church) that are even opposed to birth control.   The Bible condemns male masturbation – but the churches seem willing to overlook this concept.  

Except for the Catholic Church:  Where every sperm is sacred. 

Women don't have to put up with this: they are over fifty percent of the population - but religion keeps their minds enslaved. 

the Ol'Buzzard

MC DONALD'S COFFEE - DO YOU CARE TO DONATE?.

This afternoon I drove into McDonald’s drive-through to buy a coffee - I don’t drink coffee; but my wife likes one occasionally and she says McDonald’s has the best.   The young man at the window asked me if I would like to donate a dollar to McDonald’s charities.   This got me thinking:

When McDonald’s collects money for their charities do they get a tax deduction when they donate or use that money for charity?    Are they using our donations for a tax deduction?

I’m just curious.

the Ol’Buzzard

A BUZZARD EGG OMELET #25

“The enemy (crisis) of the moment always represented absolute evil.”

1984 by George Orwell

The new crisis of the day is the health care roll-out.   Everyone’s bowels are in an uproar: both Democrats and Republicans.  But, just like the government shutdown, a few weeks (or months) from now the roll-out debacle will be old news and not worth a comment even by late night comedians. 

Of the thirty five percent of the nation that bother to vote: fifty percent of the voters are Democrats; twenty-two percent of the voters are moderate Republicans; and twenty-eight percent of the voters are evangelical Christian retards.  The politicians we have elected are a mirror image of the voters and will again create the next government debacle that will keep us awake at night and our blood pressures elevated – if we allow it.  

A little Buddhist perspective: change the things that are in your power to change - accept the things you can not change – and move on.   We would be much happier if we turned off the news and were politically ignorant.  Of course, in this day of technology that is almost impossible.

AWAY FROM POLITICS:

I just picked up a new book A Freudian Slip Is When You Say One Thing But Mean Your Mother, by Gary Blake.   

If you enjoy PUNS – often noted as the lowest form of humor – I suggest you can o-pun this book to any page and find a phrase you wish you had coined first.    Of course if you are Rand Paul it won’t matter: you will use it anyway and claim it as yours. 

the Ol’Buzzard